workingclasshistory:

On this day, 18 August 1945, the Japanese Ministry of the Interior ordered police to be setting up “sexual comfort stations” (i.e. brothels) for US occupation troops, just before the start of surrender talks (content note: sexual violence). Local authorities and businessmen established a network of brothels under the Recreation and Amusement Association, which was state-funded, some in places like police dormitories. At its height, the RAA had 70,000 women working in its brothels, with around 80,000 at independent brothels for the 350,000 US troops in the country. The first brothel established by the RAA, Komachien (“The Babe Garden”) had 38 women, who had 15-60 clients each day. The official justification for the network was “to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls.” US military officials were aware that some women in the brothels had been enslaved, and others coerced or tricked by responding to fake advertisements for other jobs. One 19 year old girl, Natsue Takita, responded to an ad for an office worker. She was then told the only available posts were for “comfort women” and persuaded to accept it. She killed herself by jumping in front of a train a few days later. A memo from Lt Col Hugh MacDonald explained “The girl is impressed into contracting by the desperate financial straits of her parents and their urging, occasionally supplemented by her willingness to make such a sacrifice to help her family”. He also admitted that “in urban districts the practice of enslaving girls, while much less prevalent than in the past, still exists.” Eventually, facing rampant sexually transmitted infections amongst the troops, as well as complaints from army chaplains, Gen MacArthur declared the brothels off-limits to US personnel on 25 March 1946.
Pictured: US troops entering such a brothel https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1504493006402511/?type=3